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ICI (ICI)
ICI, +0.00%
said Thursday that full year profit fell to 321 million pounds ($529 million) and fourth quarter net income fell to $78 million. The company blamed weakness in Asia and disappointments in its restructuring program.

The company is also encumbered with prodigious debt of 4.2 billion pounds ($6.93 billion), a left-over of the $8 billion purchase of Unilever NV's specialty chemical divisions in 1997.

It raked in some $1.65 billion from disposals in 1998, and has gotten more than $5.7 billion in proceeds from 40 disposals since May 1997. Still disposals are behind schedule, with three planned disposals still stuck on the sales block.

Even so, ICI's results were better than analysts had expected for the fourth quarter, which was an average 35.8 million pounds ($59 million). Sales for the year fell 16 percent to 9.28 billion pounds ($14.85 billion). In the fourth quarter, sales fell 6 percent to 2.2 billion pounds.

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